


Coalescence

by lesbomancy



Category: Shadowrun
Genre: Berlin (City), Conspiracy, Cyberpunk, F/F, F/M, Fights, Gen, Government Conspiracy, Gun Violence, Guns, Hong Kong, London, M/M, Magic, Magic-Users, Multi, Murder, Other, Seattle, Sexual Content, Tokyo (City)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-04-30 10:17:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5160074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbomancy/pseuds/lesbomancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of loosely connected stories about my Shadowrun OCs, their exploits, and what happens when you try to unravel a government conspiracy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lambchop

**Author's Note:**

> Part one of many. To be updated as I finish it.

Marekura spun her arm around, loosing a fireball in an underhanded throw towards a group of gangsters across the street. The little ball of light made impact with one of them and ignited the immediate area in a brief, white-hot inferno which acted more like a flashbang than a magical death orb. The Ork woman next to her popped out from behind cover, her nail art disappearing from the human's view as she squeezed the trigger on her assault rifle in four single shots. Each released round found purchase in a formerly alive lump of meat shaped like the Mellienial Men, a hardcore biker gang obsessed with wearing vintage turn of the century clothing.

All four of them were motionless, although the one who Marekura tagged was slowly roasting alive as the fire spread about the remains of his metallic red trenchcoat.

The Ork lowered her rifle after checking each corner of the building where they were shot at from. As if nothing had happened at all people began to pour back onto the streets of Seattle, although the far-off sirens of a Lone Star rent-a-cop gave Marekura and the Ork a reason to get out of dodge. Vendors popped back into their stalls and began setting up shop again and anything near to the dead Millennial was promptly shoved to the side; people had to make money in the Sixth World and a few corpses wasn't going to stop that hustle.

The human pulled her hair back into a ponytail, scowling at the snapped hair tie sitting at her feet. Serves her right for using dollar store brand. She produced another out of her leather jacket's breast pocket and firmly whipped her shoulder length hair into place, giving it a few tugs for affirmation. When she turned to the Ork she found that the woman was staring at her, eyes narrowed as if she was trying to figure out a puzzle. Marekura crossed her arms self-consciously and scowled, giving the Ork a look.

"What?" she asked.

Lifting her hand the Ork grew a huge smile, her quasi-fluent English heavy with a Cantonese accent. "Lambchop."

"That's a food, yeah." Marekura uncrossed her arms.

"New name. Lambchop. Cooked those chummers up, right? Like a lambchop? Kiwis like lamb?"

"Not what I would've picked, but-.."

The Ork wagged her finger at Marekura, all but jabbing her in the cheek with the bright pink lacquer that covered her nail. "Nicknames aren't picked, otherwise they'd be flattering."

"Alright," Marekura ceded. "Lambchop it is. We gonna go to Big T or give our statements to the local oppressors?"

Already folding her assault rifle back up into a more manageable form underneath her body armor the Ork ran over to the corpses of the Millennials, nicking what she could off of the ones that weren't on fire. When she returned with a stack of nuyen and split it in two Marekura took the offered half without protest. Gotta pay the mortgage.

"Follow me, Lambchop!"

Without another word the Ork bounded off through the crowded streets, Marekura trying her hardest to follow behind her in spite of her lackluster physical fitness. Lin - the Ork - was her 'mentor to the underworld' as her ex-partner and current best friend called her. She ran with a tough-as-nails crew of Shadowrunners and was doing all in her power to raise up the magi protege. This clearly meant fucking around in Seattle for what seemed like an eternity, gathering up contacts so that Marekura could be self-sufficient instead of relying on Lin for every piece of gear, spell, or round of ammunition. It didn't help that Marekura never fired a gun but with her rather impressive magical ability she just never saw the need to while doing small jobs in her native New Zealand. Auckland was a pleasant place, not as fucked up as Seattle or easy to get lost in as Berlin, London or Hong Kong. The most she ever fought before this conflict with the Millennials was a jackass who thought it good to be a bigot to a meta.

When Lin finally stopped Marekura failed to make a gracious halt and ploughed into the ork's backside, doing absolutely nothing to the towering hunk of toned muscle with the chrome in her head. Lin turned and gave an amused grin, flicking Marekura's nose before gesturing wildly at the run-down pawn shop in front of them. The sickeningly bright neon LED announced the establishment as "Big T's Pawn & Tattoo Parlor." Marekura resigned herself to never truly understanding American culture as they walked through the door to an electronic announcer bell and found the shop itself fairly busy. It looked like a mini warehouse split into two with a series of medical curtains and wall dividers making up the tattoo parlor itself while the majority of the shop itself was behind chain link fencing and concrete. The lone attendant at the front desk was an overweight troll woman with what could only be described as a 'pimp coat.' She flung the security door open and waved her arms about before Lin, the two women embracing with a shared flurry of words in Cantonese too fluent for Marekura to follow coherently.

"Big T" didn't look to be Chinese at all, instead she looked like a little like a classical theatre actress that you'd see beside someone like John Wayne. Not exactly beautiful but she had a physical charisma about her. When their conversation finally died down to a point where Marekura felt comfortable clearing her throat Lin grabbed at her shoulder enthusiastically, shaking her so hard that her head wobbled.

"This is Lambchop! New girl, fierce with a fireball. Very cute - Jess met her in London, friends right?" Lin pushed Marekura forward, presenting her like a costumed child at a beauty pagant.

Marekura forced a grin, offering her hand to Big T. "Ah, yeah.. h-.. she.. yeah. Friends."

Taking up Marekura's hand Big T gave it a firm shake, holding her arm at the elbow. She had a remarkably soft touch for a troll, at least in Marekura's experience.

"Call me Trish. Big T is a title, sort of a handle for the boards, hm?"

"She's not a runner," Lin interrupted. "Supplier, you know? Knows a fixer who needs a gang. We're the gang."

"He's a little eccentric but I think he and Johnny would get along well," Big T smiled. "Plus it's been a while since you two were in the game. Left with a lot of debts paid off. Figure I owe you a little treat."

Lin swore in Cantonese, punching Big T's arm before waggling her gaudy lacquered nails in the Troll's face. The happy little painted dog on her pointer finger looked about ready to peel off with how she was gesturing, "I was a kid! Johnny paid debts. Barely shitting my pants as a Shadowrunner."

Big T lifted her hand and pushed Lin's arm aside, "Besides the point. I got three people inbound from Berlin that need a gang and a safe house. I've got them vetted, I know their stories. One of them may push you off the Captain's chair, Lin, but they're all good people. Need a home. A gang."

Marekura furrowed her brow, looking between the two women. A lot to take in, although she didn't exactly trust that Big T was totally on the up-and-up.

"But," Big T continued. "That's not why y'all are here right now. Time to make it official?"

"Fuck yes!" Lin all but yelled, pulling the sleeve on her fatigues up to the shoulder to show off her homemade 'crew patch,' an old fashioned raven's skull made of circuitry tattooed onto her arm. Marekura smiled when she saw it, eager for her own.

"You know it," Marekura responded before looking over to tattoo parlor itself.

"Then go sit your asses down, I'll be over there in a minute - gotta get my gloves and wash my hands," Big T waggled her fingers before turning around and disappearing behind the security door, a mechanical buzz coming out of a speaker somewhere as it clicked open and shut.

Lin grabbed Marekura's shoulder and pushed her through a curtain to a parlor chair, sitting her down on the chair itself while she took a metal picnic chair from the corner and sat on it reverse with her arms crossed atop the back, "She's the best artist this side of Seattle. Could be doing art for rich folks but she says it's all stupid. Likes doing ink, more meaningful she said."

Marekura laughed, a little nervous. "Tell that to people who got drunk and woke up the next morn with tattoos they don't remember getting."

"No, no. To her. Big T likes making her mark. Artist shit - makes her real happy. Doesn't pay for a grenade launcher's black market shipping costs, though, right?"

"Right," Marekura said. "So the rest of the shop is her.. what, hobby?"

"Job. She's even got a SIN. Reputable, helps cops and corps with the bad stuff. Murder, child porn, gangs, stuff like that. They don't look her way, she slips a tip now and again.. gets to make her mark on people. Love her a lot - like a mother, you know?"

"What'd she do to get this trust with you?"

"Me and Johnny did a foul. Gonna get caught by Lone Star, she saved us. Did some work with her before he went back to Hong Kong," Lin admitted.

Big T walked through the curtain with her gloves and her tattoo gun, a piece of advanced tech that looked more expensive than the past four city blocks combined, "Givin' me rave reviews, Lin?"

Lin shrugged, giving her a happy smile before settling down in her chair, lazily tapping away at the phone she had in her hand.

"She's your biggest fan," Marekura said as she took off her jacket and sat back. "I want it in the same spot, yeah? Have a few elsewhere so I know how the healing goes."

"Serves me fine, darling." Big T returned, the needle gun buzzing to life after a quick disinfection of Marekura's shoulder.

It stung but Marekura wasn't fibbing when she said she had a few others in other places, some of them a lot more sensitive than the shoulder. She was just glad it wasn't a particularly bony area on her frame because there wasn't anything worse than thin skin and a lot of pain.

"Figure," Lin started. "That we get these new Shadowrunners in and we do a few jobs and get the nuyen so that we can ship Johnny over from Hong Kong and then we do the big job. It's gonna be great, big retirement and no time limit."

"That's a lot of ands," Marekura sighed. "You gonna stop after that, then?"

"Not on your life, Lambchop. We're goin' places - gonna be big stars on the boards. Everyone gonna come to us for the good jobs. Corps gonna shit their pants with us."

Big T laughed, deciding not to add fuel to the fire of Lin's big dreams. She finished the lines on Marekura's tattoo at an impressive pace and was already refining it and adding extra colored accents.

"People like us can't be movie stars, right? No use behind a desk. I got my drones and my gun, you got your magic. Johnny got his explosives. We got half a team! Three more, maybe three more after that and we got a rotating team. Good Fixer gets us constant work and we never burn out or get wasted. I got it all planned out, Lambchop. Hit retirement at thirty, easy!"

"If you save the nuyen, darling." Big T added.

"Of course! My drones work because I make them good. Halves upkeep. Food, board gets covered in the five percent tax the Fixer takes along with their cut. Easy, easy shit. Rich quick with lots of action."

Marekura winced as Big T cleaned the tattoo off, "Finished? Already?"

"Did that pattern five years ago, sweetheart. It's my design - ain't a way that I could take longer than ten minutes with it and my little buzzer," Big T smirked, turning off the needle gun and pushing up the curtain. "Consider it on the house. Y'all take care of yourselves. Got a shipment I need to receive around back."

Lin stood up, waving at Big T. "Be good, T!"

"Yeah. Thanks for the ink. Looks good," Marekura said as she stared down at it. No better way to join a group than to brand yourself, she supposed.

Lin swiped up Marekura's jacket, tying it around the human's waist before yanking on the arm of the jacket as she made her way to the door. "You hungry, Lambchop? Your name got me thinking of barbeque."

"Could eat, yeah. What's good in the district?"

"Somali! Greatest African cuisine in Seattle just ten minutes away. Hopefully no idiots who want to mug us this time, yeah?"

"Hope so," Marekura said. "Never had Somali. Gonna show me what's good?"

"Oooh, yeah I will Lambchop. With what I got lined up you aren't going to see the END of the good!"

The pair exited the shop and Marekura poked at the bandage that she didn't even feel Big T apply. When she looked up she saw Lin ploughing through a half-full sidewalk at full speed. She started into a sprint, silently cursing that her new friend had the metabolism of a goddamned solar entity. At least she technically had a job, even if it was an illegal job that she'd probably end up dying over sooner rather than later; Lin's retirement idea was more optimistic than a man thinking he'll get a call from the mayor as the lethal injection enters his blood.

Shadowrunner.

She could get used to that.


	2. The Gargoyle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny Gao and a hot-shot parkouring ork have a job: snatch a series of bags for an employer.

The sickeningly bright neon reflecting off of the rain slicked boulevard gave Johnny a headache. He fingered the pistol in the waistband of his pants as he pulled his trousers up, tongue flicking across his tusks as he looked out across the street to the seediest motel in his home neighborhood of Hong Kong. Monsoon season made Shadowrunning a little more art than strategy, a lot of praying and fast movements or else you'd end up wasted because you couldn't escape on the water or the streets were too slick for you to drive off through.

He ended up getting the scars on his face because he refused to adapt during a monsoon. Ended up watching a good friend fly off of the motorcycle they were escaping on, although at least being flung at nearly 100 mph into a wall was technically a painless death. At least that's what made him sleep easier at night, thinking that. That's why Johnny preferred to take the role of charismatic charmer as opposed to leader. His younger sister Lin was the more improvisational of the two even if she came off as a hyper-active loon half the time.

Smiling and knowing everyone in the neighborhood wasn't the only thing Johnny was good at, though. He earned his living Shadowrunning, mostly through corporate sabotage and robberies. Tonight wasn't much different, he had a few small phosphorous charges that'd burn out on an electrical conduit and then he'd walk right on in through the cover of monsoon and darkness to take some experimental tech that this low-level corp was peddling as the best and newest alternative to the microwave. Johnny didn't really give a shit, although he was a little more nervous than usual without his sister and the fact that he was in charge of the run with one of Lin's favorite proteges.

A self-proclaimed "stealth expert," some American with a thick accent that he couldn't understand the Cantonese of. English wasn't her first language but they managed to communicate half-way decent through a variety of operations, even if the barrier did get in the way with certain words. He adjusted his blazer and zipped it up to his neck; no reason to go into a fight and end up snagging on a chain link fence or having your extra magazines spill out of your pockets like cold spaghetti. The "stealth expert" was an Ork, although probably the smallest and shortest he'd ever seen and he could only barely see the neon blue highlights of her outfit and hijab as she monkey climbed across the reinforced power lines to the corp's warehouse.

He flicked his wrist to expose his smartwatch and after button tap connected the two to a call he cleared his throat, his English heavily accented yet charming enough to tempt an angel.

"Hey, big girl. You got twenty seconds or so before the lights kick out. Think you can get a door open for me in time?"

"Oh-.. yes," Splice responded nervously. The winds picked up and she was swinging back and forth like a pennant. He could hear the wind bombarding her microphone.

"Don't fall. Lin'll get angry with me if I let her favorite spider monkey get creamed on the pavement."

"I won't. Going quiet. Be right back."

The winds calmed down, allowing Splice to make her way over several shipping containers. She landed without alerting one of the many security guards stalking the warehouse grounds with sub-machine guns, slipping between the cracks of the shipping containers until she met with the ground. Johnny smirked and made his way across the street, happily waving at a pedestrian who recognized him until he made a show of throwing away the remains of the fish and chip basket he was picking at earlier. Just another man on the streets enjoying himself as far as any perimeter cameras were concerned.

The entire block including the warehouse lost it's power only two seconds after Johnny's estimated countdown and under the cover of darkness he ran to the door that Splice had unlocked before carving a path towards the warehouse itself. Several security guards were splayed out between shipping containers on top of one another, haphazardly moved since the name of the job was speed rather than entirely lacking detection. Splice was hanging on a wall below a window, her hand hanging down in offer to Johnny. He groaned loudly and broke into a sprint, jumping off of a crate and onto the wall, both arms latching onto the smaller ork's hand. She was surprisingly strong and managed to help Johnny up onto her ledge before unlocking the window.

"You sure I can't call you monkey?" Johnny chuckled.

"More like a gorilla anyway. Monkeys aren't strong," She winked back at Johnny, the flicker of her blue cybereye flashing like the lens on a camera.

He shook his head as she wedged herself through the window, propping it open so that Johnny could do the same. The warehouse was relatively empty and pitch black although he had a feeling that Splice didn't see it how he did given the chrome in her head. He turned on his smart watch's flashlight and pointed it at the metal ground grating until he found the stairs, waving for Splice to join him.

"Back-up generator is gonna be up in a minute or two," he said quietly.

"Okay. Gimme a path."

Johnny huffed, looking around the best he could as they descended the catwalk. He had seen the interior as a 'janitor' earlier that day but it was a lot different when nothing was illuminated. By the time they were at ground level the emergency generator clicked on, basking the warehouse in the faint red emergency lights which were few and far between. Johnny stuck a finger towards a group of offices and jaunted off with a happy whistle begging to be released from his lips. Inside were several security guards, the clicking static hiss of their radios just loud enough to be heard through the cheap plaster walls.

Splice leaned down before the door, closing her organic eye as the cybernetic one worked, each individuals profile highlighted for her. She pushed out her arm, putting out three fingers for Johnny. The ork man nodded as he glanced around, pulling the pistol from his waistband to flick the safety off. He looked at his smart watch again, this time clicking on the text interface and with a stubby thumb he sent an outgoing message to their ride. He gave a thumbs up to Splice, the woman standing up by the door now and ready to breach. Johnny placed a small amount of refined explosives on the door's hinges, igniting it with a handheld lighter.

The fine, semi-moist powder sizzled and popped as the hinges and the doorframe itself warped and Johnny took a great amount of pleasure in kicking the door in as the security guards turned around to face the two intruders. Johnny had his pistol already raised, a plastic-tipped round exploding from the barrel and bursting on impact with one of the guard's faces. He fell to the ground, covering his face with a muffled yelp as one of the strongest Saeder-Krupp sedatives worked it's way into his system. Johnny was a little bit too proud with his headshot to notice a baton cracking down on his shoulder, stinging the skin and causing his eyes to water on contact.

Splice moved in, grabbing the security guard's arm and managing to yank the baton out of it as it moved down off of Johnny's body. She brought the heel end of the baton on the security guard's face, watching in what seemed like slow motion as the troll man's nose broke and inverted from the force of it. She kept wailing on him until he fell back, the troll gasping and coughing as he hit the ground. They were big and brutish but clearly they hadn't seen action in some time, the third guard caught so off balance that she struggled to get her tazer out of it's holster in time, her hand slipping as Johnny shot her in the neck and shoulder several times with his tranquilizer. She fell down, cracking her head on the end of the security console before rolling into silent motionlessness on the ground.

"He got you. Okay?" Splice looked Johnny up and down as she moved to the security locker and used the code Johnny gave her from their employer.

Johnny rolled his shoulder, wincing as he felt the full extent of the blow. That troll was huge, his forearm had a lot of strength and if he had any medical knowledge he'd probably guess that he had cracked something. 

"We're good," he said with a happy smile. "The code work?"

The locker clicked open with a small beep, exposing several small duffel bags and a few packages set for shipment. The interior was deceptively large and Splice tossed one of the duffel bags on the table. Johnny unzipped it and looked in, nodding as he read the words 'PROTOTYPE: PROJECT PREDATOR' on the protective plastic wrapping of whatever they were there to retrieve.

"These are them," he said with a barely contained hollar. His watch beeped and he looked down at his wrist, the message from their getaway driver right on time. "Okay, we go out the back door and we're good."

Splice flung the other duffel bags over her shoulders and stood up, "Let's go. Other guards probably heard the door."

"Low yield, highly stealthy," Johnny said indignantly. "They didn't hear anything."

Johnny walked through the empty doorframe and felt his foot enter his mouth when the sliding cargo doors at the front of the warehouse opened up and several security guards armed with guns poured through the barely lit interior. He turned to Splice, laughed nervously and ran like Hell for the back door. She followed behind him, lagging only because he knew the terrain but when the guards shouted and started chasing them she ran ahead of Johnny, climbing a container and squeezing through an open window.

He turned his bad shoulder away, bursting through the door to the monsoon wracked Hong Kong pier as Splice was finishing up taking down several security guards with her bare hands. They were conscious, one of them threatening to bring his gun up before Johnny shot them with his pistol. Gunfire erupted from behind him as one of the lead security guards chased the two of them with an automatic pistol. Johnny almost dropped his duffel bag in shock, ducking his head and weaving through shipping containers as he struggled to keep up with Splice.

"You don't even know where the boat is!" He called out.

"Heard it! Here!"

Splice vaulted over more containers, climbing up between the stacks so that she could get better access over the fence keeping them from the escape boat. Johnny almost thought to try the same method of escape but then he remembered he wasn't part monkey so he ran as fast as he could for the chain link fence, hurling the duffel bag up to Splice as he climbed it the old fashioned way. Gunshots rattled off of the metal as he climbed and he caught one good look at his pursuers as he flipped over the fence itself: a western woman, white or mostly white with bright violet cybereyes and an artificial lower jaw made to look organic. It had the typical cyberware circuitry trailing from underneath her cheek to her bottom lip, the artificial flesh looking slightly more off color when compared to her actual skin. Even if she was in a full security suit with body armor he could still tell she was chromed up to the neck with both arms being artificial with tinted silicon and plastic made to look like skin despite the obvious segmented machinery.

It was a pretty face but not one he wished that he saw, the woman was a Hong Kong fairy tale and not the sort you'd want to encounter. She had a history of perusing and killing Shadowrunners who crossed her on the jobs she took, a true corporate stooge from the west. Rumors about her were so numerous on the Shadowlands BBS and in local Shadowrunner haunts that it was impossible to get a fair feeling on who she was or what she was about. As far as anyone knew she just killed people. That's just how she was.

Johnny's boots nearly slipped on the slick concrete as he landed and he waved for Splice to run, "Go! Go fast! Lots of guns behind us!"

As soon as he was a fair ways away and out of sight from the guards they opened fire, their sub-machine guns tearing through the blue tarp on Johnny's side of the fence, chipping away at concrete and anything that was in their general direction. The speedboat waiting to ferry them away sat ready, it's driver revving the engine and doing a small circle near the pier. On one rotation Splice jumped off the pier and landed in the cabin, tumbling to her knees from the force of the landing with all the extra gear. Johnny wasn't a nimble man so he had to wait for another turn. The gunfire at his back didn't instill him with confidence and only after waiting for two rotations did he feel confident taking the leap.

He flung himself off the pier with a running start, arms flailing as he splayed out to latch onto the passing boat. His body barely made impact and his arms flailed around until Splice grabbed onto him, pulling his torso into the cabin as his legs kicked in the air and he rolled around, the speedboat growling as it cut through the choppy waters and set a jet stream behind it at the warehouse security. Johnny panted, laughing hysterically

"Holy shit! Holy shit! That was the Gargoyle!" He flipped around, keeping his head low to the boat as he clung to a grip for dear life. "We just escaped the Gargoyle!"

Splice kept herself in the corner, knuckles white as she kept as motionless as possible in the heavy rain. "That's good! Now we're marked for death in Hong Kong! Just what I wanted."

"Ahaha! I know, yeah? Can't wait to tell my sister!" He moved closer to the driver, patting the bald elf on the shoulder before speaking in Cantonese. "Keebler! Call Big T, we need to get out of the city as soon as possible."

The driver nodded, taking his eyes off the waters briefly as he turned to face Johnny, "She has a job for you anyway. Supposed to take you to your safe house so you can pack up - both of you. Then we're going to the Philippines."

Splice looked between the two men before interjecting in heavily accented Cantonese. "Philippines? Why there?"

Keebler turned to look at Splice briefly before turning his gaze back to the water as he raced along the waterfront. "Big T has a private jet there. Got a job, too. Jailbreak and escape."

Splice shook her head, almost trying to stand up until the boat rocked violently. "Jailbreak? What did they do?"

"Shadowrunners, probably." Johnny said.

Keebler nodded, "Group that lost their leader taking down a Renraku facility. Very nasty, doing experiments on them now. All metahumans."

Johnny sat back, nodding at Splice before giving her a pat on the knee. "Don't worry, kid," he said in English. "We're getting out of here before the monsoons really pick up, yeah? Look at the bright side - Big T is gonna pay us good."

Splice sighed heavily, deeming it not worthy to argue with the boundless positive energy that Johnny seemed to be giving up even as they bounced around in the back of an ancient speedboat with only one seat. When she joined up with Lin she thought she'd be doing simple jobs, not getting hired by a smuggler to break her failed ventures out of a Renraku testing facility or wherever they were.

The paycheck better have been worth it.


	3. Basement Raids Mean Financial Gains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marekura takes a job from Big T, resulting in her meeting the excruciatingly colorful Jessica Wakahisa.

“In what world is THIS an easy job?” Jessica yelled, curling around the concrete pillar to fire an unaimed burst from her assault rifle at the gang members across the parking garage. They returned fire, managing to chip a fair amount off of her impromptu cover. Fortunately for the group they were improperly armed and not trained at all, their best being what most corporate security guards would consider sloppiness to the point of asking for it.

Being ex-Lone Star herself, the group’s mage had the same thought as she whipped her hand around, like she was going to fire a pellet from an invisible sling. At the last moment before the nonexistent release a fireball formed in the palm of her hand and it arched high in the air, coming down between the gangsters and buffeting four of them in flames. As they flailed and screamed Jessica flipped back around the corner and popped off several kill shots, one bullet for each of them. The flames died quickly once they hit the ground, the mage’s fire more of a flash fire as opposed to a napalm strike.

“You trying to say that was hard?” Lambchop said.

Jessica poked her head around the corner, silently admiring her handiwork as the gangsters sizzled and began to fill the area with their barbecued remains. She ejected the magazine to her rifle, checking how many rounds she had before reinserting it into the rifle. The elf shrugged, looking to Lambchop briefly before scanning the parking garage’s up and down ramps for further intrusions.

“No gunfight is easy. Half of it is luck, Thompson.”

“One: don’t use my name,” Lambchop paused, holding up a pair of fingers. “Two: I am an extremely lucky bitch. Nixes their odds of luck to nil so it becomes a skill fight. I am aaaalways the most skilled mage in a room.”

“Sounds more than a little cocky to me.”

“It ain’t cockiness if it’s true - not all of us were soldiers before we became runners.”

“Yeah, some of us are ex-cops,” Jessica said with a grin.

Lambchop held a finger out at the elf pointedly, “Don’t you start that fight, I’ll win it next time.”

“Just like the last four arguments.”

“Bitch.”

Jessica offered a smile in return, finger pressing to her headset to transmit. “Cowboy? Still there?”

“Working,” a raspy feminine voice responded. “Gimme one second.”

“Ooooone,” Lambchop counted into her own microphone.

The elevator door behind the pair dinged, opening up to reveal an empty car. Lambchop looked more than a little mortified, like anyone’s first experience with an automatic door. Jessica looked around before crossing cover and walking into the elevator, waving for Lambchop to do the same. Once the mage was inside the car the doors closed and the elevator buzzed to life, moving down.

“Don’t be a smartass,” Cowboy called through. “See you jackasses at the pick-up. Got heavy resistance but it’s all old CCTV’s… nothing I can do from here. My ‘deck might as well be an expensive shovel for that old tech.”

“Don’t worry about it, Cowboy. We’ll take it from here,” Jessica said.

“Bet your bony ass it will,” Lambchop mumbled.

The pair rode down in relative silence, both of them checking their gear, ammo, goodies and general physical wellness. Objective for the night was a drug addict, one who ended up getting found out as a rich socialite who lost their way. Typical extortion, kidnapping and bullheaded dickery from a local Seattle gang of pill pushers followed and the mother knew a friend who was a friend of a guy who knew the Shadowlands BBS and used it frequently. The job posted asked for her alive and the gangsters dead, a job that Jessica was glad to have; to many people overdosed growing up, not enough young bodies got to become adults.

Lambchop was a little harder to convince, the human having bought more than a few drugs from this gang in the past. An associate of an ex-boyfriend, Lambchop was always up for a good fight so long as she was able to get absolutely blitzed afterwards. Jessica pinned it as typical escapism after she had Cowboy do a background check on her, a New Zealand native who managed to kill an innocent in the line of duty. Guilt was a burden, drugs and booze lightened the load. Ever since Jessica found out she was always sure to make sure she brought Lambchop along, figuring that maybe some day she’d stay clean after a job or take some of Jessica’s advice. She didn’t appreciate the ‘older sister treatment,’ as she called it and only spoke to Jess through texts after jobs, citing Jessica’s ‘preachiness’ as the motivation behind it.

Jessica always seemed to get involved with complicated people both in and out of running the shadows. If it wasn’t some sort of drug addict or ex-something that had a storied past it was a disasterous combination of people that’d end to the crew getting exposed, blown up or disbanded. Being your own fixer was awful but as she checked the magazine on her pistol she knew she’d never go for another line of work. Rescuing a damsel was great but any job could give you that, just like being a cop could give you the satisfaction of wasting thirty-something gangsters in an old tenement building. The nuyen was as sweet and fast as any high-risk hazard pay she got in the navy but the people, the ability to pick and choose what you do and who you hurt resonated within her. There were a lot of bad people like her in the shadows doing horrible things to people, utilizing skillsets that made them a menace to corporations and the emotionally neutered, media-influenced society of wage slaves.

Not everyone took the jobs with keywords like ‘help’ or ‘rescue,’ but that was part of the beauty of it. She took those jobs, she was making the world a better place by doing the math she knew well: two negatives make a positive. The elevator chimed in warning as they approached the basement floor, the LED above the door showing a little animated door opening in closing.

“Flash and smash?” Lambchop asked, pressing herself to the side of the elevator car. Her hand glowed unnaturally, wisps of flame pulling from the air itself to form a small sphered in her palm.

“Go for it, Lambchop.” Jessica made herself as flat as she could against the wall.

The door screeched as it slowly opened at the basement hallway. The musty scent of a subterranean structure that had seen better days hit Jessica’s nose like a piece of rebar, her barely audible gag causing Lambchop to shoot a dirty look. A gangster dressed in flannel with a backwards snapback approached the elevator itself, calling out in what Jessica assumed was Portugese. Lambchop flicked her wrist and rolled the fireball in her hand around the corner, the whistles and hisses of fireworks going off moments later, a slew of panicked words and random gunfire the result of the New Zealander’s homebrewed stun grenade.

Jessica whipped around the corner, dropping to one knee. She had four in her sights, others around the corners of the hallway’s T-shaped bend. Her gloved finger squeezed the trigger, one of the gangsters rolling back against the wall as she tagged him in the face, a bright red hole replacing the troll’s former mouth. She pivoted, exhaling as she acquired her new target. He was recovering fast, his dark glasses making Jessica think that he looked like a white supremacist Terminator. She squeezed the trigger, his chest darkening as he fell to the ground lifelessly, his assault rifle clanging to the floor.

A fireball whizzed past Jessica’s head, landing center mass on the third gangster. His clothes and flesh caught fire, dark blue and hot to the point where Jessica could feel her flesh warming from nearly twenty paces away. Lambchop whipped out a pistol and fired off three rounds, two of them hitting center mass and the other burying itself in the wall next to the gangster’s head. The fourth man had retreated behind a corner, causing Lambchop to hiss in disdain as her pistol rounds chipped the cheap concrete wall, barely missing the escapee by inches on every shot.

The emergency lights to the building came on, the flames from the dead gangster’s body wafting up to a nearby fire alarm. Almost immediately the two women were drenched, covered from head to toe thanks to the oddly well-maintained sprinkler system in the building.

“I guess if you’re making meth you need to fucking make sure you got good sprinklers?!” Lambchop laughed.

“Only if they’re on manual. Meth gives off fumes, I think they’re making Adratex anyway.”

“Grow a fucking sense of humor. Split up?” Lambchop waved at the hallway’s fork.

“Yeah, don’t think we have time to do it any other way. The false alarm is going to draw attention.”

Lambchop smirked, whipping up another fireball as she pressed against the wall, leaning around each corner before pulling back. “Nothing false about it, I’m gonna light this sty up.”

“Just stay sober. We’re out in five minutes, okay?”

“You got it, mom!” Lambchop hooted, turning the corner to release three fireballs one after the other. She charged down the corridor, her pistol blasting.

The faint screaming of whoever she shot was audible over the sprinklers and alarms, Jessica sighing as she rounded her corner and found it relatively empty. Only six rooms on each wing, at least they had the time to check each one. The faint twirling emergency light only slightly disrupted her focus, the elf closing her eyes so that she could see more naturally in the low light scenario. Her eyes adjusted and (being elven) she could see nearly as well as if it were broad daylight outside. She was thankful that she at least hadn’t gone blind from Lambchop’s magical flashbangs, especially with how eager Lambchop was to use them.

Her chosen corridor was more or less abandoned, only the flashing red lights, maintenance piping and the occasional fire extinguisher to keep her company for a little under a hundred feet. Filled up rooms dotted the wall, condemned parts of the basement filled up with concrete after a particularly rough pack of ghouls moved in years before Jessica’s arrival in the city. The first actual room she happened upon was tossed about, some sort of communal barracks for the gangsters filled with bunk beds, foot lockers and even a bathroom. It looked like someone either had a pillow fight or that those sleeping were mustered for combat.

After a clean sweep of the room she was back in the hall, hoping that maybe these gangsters had a case of the blues and decided to hit each other with pillows. It’d go quicker that way, the echoes of gunfire and explosions behind her a constant reminder that Lambchop was having a literal blast. Jessica hoped she wouldn’t send the kidnapee on fire, knowing full well that if the contract voided then she’d be out of an apartment down payment and Lambchop wouldn’t be able to afford a clean fix of whatever she was drowning herself in. No pressure, Jessica though. What’s a little crushing responsibility to your acts of hyper violence?

Two more rooms cleaned out of any activity, one of them an armory which looked locked up tight as far as she could tell, most of their guns being crappy quality to begin with.Voices ahead were a good indicator that she at least went in a direction for some reason, her body stopping short before a doorway where at least two people were in, their voices muffled only slightly by the distance and the objects between them. The first voice that called out was someone who sounded large in frame with a deep baritone.

“... I swear this has to be Zig’s fault! The piece of shit - get that cabinet in front of the door!”

“Zig went to frickin’ Chicago, dude. Zig aint’ here to blame-... ngh.. unfh! This is TOO heavy for me. Why don’t we just block the hallway?”

“This barely fits in here! How the shit is it gonna fit through the door?!”

“Okay, whatever! Good point.. shit, don’t be touchy.”

“Touchy is when your leftovers get eaten or your girl gets fucked by another guy. We got some goddamn runners in the complex, that’s different!”

She winced as she heard a loud thud, peeking her head around just enough to see the pair busy with lifting a cabinet loaded to the neck in canned food. Jessica slowly pivoted around the corner and raised her rifle, finger squeezing twice on the trigger, one for each of them. She was quick in dropping the second target, turning back acround from the storage room once she was sure that they were dead. She was running out of rooms to check, only two more that hadn’t been boarded up being on the plans that Cowboy downloaded for them. She heard the discontented, muffled screaming from nearly four feet away but as she slowed down Jessica knew she was in the right place. She replaced her magazine for a fresh one, not wanting any chances with whatever would happen inside. Her thumb flicked the safety to 3-round burst and she pressed her long, pointed ear to the wall.

Hardly a soothsayer, Jessica couldn’t tell what she’d be walking into. There’d be no doubt that she was defended and it sounded like she was behind something to begin with, probably some form of cover. Grenades would be too risky, not that she’d waste the few she carried on a job like this. She could go back for Lambchop, risking she’d lose the girl or she could press forward, risking her and the girl’s life with a firefight. Momma Wakahisa didn’t raise a quitter, so Jessica took up position by the door and began breathing. Time seemed a little more on her side and with each inhale her world got smaller, each exhale expanding it outwards.

Jessica turned the corner, finding herself faced with several thugs. A buffet resulting of their rapid fire sub-machine guns turned the area around her person into a deathly aura of gunfire. She managed only one shot before she had to retreat back, the occasional pot shot forcing her back farther from the doorframe. There were way too many to handle alone and she recognized the one in the middle from Cowboy’s hacked Lone Star criminal database; he was the leader, the kidnapper and ransom demander himself. So she decided to take a trick out of an old friend’s arsenal, pulling out her personal back-up blood bag, popping the top and seeping it onto the floor before the doorway. She stayed silent, her rifle raised as she waited for one of them to come see if she was alive or confirm the kill.

When one of them did whip around the corner to check what was happening she shot him in the face, the ork gurgling once as two rounds buried in his lower face and then one in his forehead, a biological reaction to death much in the same way that he likely just shit his pants. Jessica was glad that it was an ork, that meant she could use him. She pushed forward and rammed into his body, letting it slump against her for makeshift cover as she wielded her rifle with one hand. She aimed at the second gangster, firing once, two of the three bullets making their mark and killing him. She felt a few gunshots ripple into the dead ork’s body, only a handful going through the body and into her armor, the two combined being more than enough padding to fend off the weak street weapons that they likely bought from some guy on the street corner.

Her aim was shit underneath the meatbag she was using for kevlar, each of her three round bursts going wide. When the leader’s gun went dry and the slide popped back she pushed out from underneath the corpse, drawing her knife and hopping over his makeshift cover. It looked like a bedroom, probably his bedroom, and now he had to defend it from someone like Jessica. She may have had a glimmer of regret or remorse if it weren’t for the fact that he was a drug pushing gangster operating out of one of Seattle’s grimiest dens of filth. Jess did regret engaging a troll in unarmed combat, her knife nearly flying out of her hands after two slashes to the side of his face, one of them clanging off of a bony protrusion harmlessly.

One strong punch in the gut between plates of armor and she was nearly done for, Jess barely managing to avoid the stock of his rifle as it was aimed for her face. Even though she was an elf she did manage to usually out-brutalize her opponents, though it was always a damn challenge with trolls because of their size. She pulled away, side-stepping to the troll’s right. Two quick stabs to the unarmored underbelly, followed by one in the armpit. It did damage, good enough damage so that he turned quick enough to send her flying into the wall with his other arm. Her wounds were deliberately made, his clothes and body already soaking through to become wet and crimson as he bled uncontrollably. 

Jessica pulled herself out of the broken plaster of the wall, looking all the worse for wear and stinging at various points. She made out a few points on her person where her own blood trickled through the off-white dust covering her left side. Somewhere along the way she had dropped her knife, so the troll’s thrashing wae sightly more emboldened. His raw strength simply was more than her own, any deflection of soak of a hit could mean his advantage. He lunged forward, crushing Jessica into the ground. Her head whipped back against the concrete, causing her to lose her vision for several seconds as he wailed on her with his fists. The fall itself definitely cracked a rib, if not two, and she couldn’t wiggle out from underneath him no matter how hard she tried.

When he leaned back to grab an ottoman in both hands she managed to reach her pistol. It slid from its sheath and the safety flicked effortlessly into position. Three rounds in the face were more than enough to blast the troll’s face into submission, even if the ottoman came clamboring down on her head. She covered it with her arms, making the pain only a little less than ‘the worst I’ve ever felt’ but was giving that sensation a run for it’s money, easily taking the silver medal in that category. Jessica had a hard time climbing out from underneath the troll’s massive body and the furniture he was going to kill her with but she did manage to do it, grab her rifle and open the bathroom door with a little help from the sprinklers lubrication making her all the more greased up. Inside was the figuratively wide-eyed, whimpering socialite tied to the actual toilet itself. 

To the kidnapper’s credit she was actually gagged and blindfolded, even dressed up in what looked to be a brown burlap sack made into clothes. A closer look gave Jess the glimpse of a pair of handcuffs snapped around each of the woman’s ankles, skin red and irritated from struggling. The less the hostage could move and see the better off Jessica and Lambchop were; anonymity was part of the job if you wanted to make a career out of it. Jess slung her rifle over her shoulder and unlocked the cuffs around the hostage’s wrists, then the ones at her legs. She hefted up the socialite without so much as a word of comfort and plopped her over her other shoulder, thankful she didn’t skip her strength training for the week. She did slide around some but after one slippery near-drop she calmed down a lot, even clung to Jessica’s harness.

Her free hand pulled her pistol from the holster on her leg, just in case any stragglers had a bright idea or two that she’d have to extinguish. The trek back to the elevator was relatively uneventful other than the hostage flailing occasionally or whimpering, though it seemed she learned how to act the part of inoffensive dead weight fairly well, being just enough trouble to warrant attention yet avoid a severe beating. Lambchop popped out of the first room that Jess checked, the elf raising her pistol to the human’s face and only just barely avoiding a squeeze of the trigger. The human was wide-eyed and ready to hurl a fireball towards Jessica’s chest before she waved her hand and extinguished it.

“You almost shot me!”

“Sorry,” Jess responded. “You jumped out.”

“Won’t be doin’ a lot of jumping if you pop my apricot. That the dame?”

“Yeah, this is her. Try to avoid using names or locations.”

“Riight,” Lambchop turned around. “Anonymity and deception, I remember. Driver texted me back, said they’ll be upstairs in a jiff.”

“Texting and driving? Seriously?”

“They’re a good driver! Don’t gimme that slag.”

The pair continued to the elevator, Lambchop taking the front and not even bothering to unholster her pistol. She was turning her head back to speak to Jessica frequently, bumping into the wall almost every time she turned her head away from the hall itself.

“I’m not. Seems dangerous,” Jessica said.

“Sure, guess it is. But we got gangsters and probably some EMTs and firefighters on their way to the building. I set a lot of shit on fire.”

“I noticed. The water hasn’t stopped.”

“You’re welcome!” Lambchop said, jabbing the elevator button with her thumb.

Thanks in part to lax safety regulations the door opened up, the two walking in and snapping the button for the first floor. Both of the women plus the hostage were soaking wet, Jessica having at least a few cracks and long-lasting wounds thanks to her fight with the troll. She was exhausted and Lambchop was showing her fatigue as well, too much casting; too many fireballs made her a little bit weaker, a little more sluggish. By the time the doors slid open to the parking garage’s floor they were ready to keel over and sleep, the vision of several armed gangsters lying down before two drones giving them pause. Cops?

A sharp whistle from the back of a van turned their heads, giving them a view of their ork getaway driver sitting between the open doors with her legs crossed. Jess and her met only a few times, a Chinese woman who adored running the shadows, especially for friends. Since they last met she had dyed her hair, even got a new piece of chrome in her head, explaining the drones. She was hooked up to them and without any apparent external input they flew into the back of the van, sitting on little docks with their own robot seatbelts.

“Job done? We going?” The redhead asked, her English rusty and pronunciation ill-practiced.

“Yeah! You did this?!” Lambchop yelled.

“Had to, eh, clear path. Test run.” She pointed to the drones behind her. “Leaving now?”

“Yes, we need to go.” Jessica said, looking to Lambchop pointedly. The human pouted, gesturing to the bodies and their goodies as if there were no finer buffet in all of Seattle. “Now,” Jess emphasized.

“Fine. Party pooper.”

The ork chuckled, hopping off the back of the van as she pulled her driving gloves on and rounded the vehicle to the driver’s side. Lambchop and Jessica rushed to the back of the van, climbing over the dead gangsters that the drones dispatched. The hostage was plopped inside and cuffed to a bar on the back wall and the pair jumped in after her, closing the doors. The ork slammed the driver’s seat door and started the van up, starting their journey out of the garage at an excellently inconspicuous speed. The two sat in the back, drip drying on the plastic tray that served as the van’s bed and finally let their bodies relax. Adrenaline was in short supply by this point, too many people to kill and too little time to do it.

They had left just in time to avoid a detachment of Lone Star escorting a few EMTs and a corporate funded firefighting force, weaving between traffic as best they could until they joined the droves of others on their 9-5 trek home. The ork pulled into an alleyway designated by the employer and they opened the side door, uncuffing the socialite. Jessica held the girl close to her, the stench of alcohol and unwashed filth enough to make her eyes water. The van stopped short of an older man in a suit holding a duffel bag and Jessica sat the young woman’s feet on the floor, the man looking relieved and horrified at the same time. Jessica snapped her fingers until he handed over the duffel bag and she threw it back to Lambchop.

“Bonus,” Jessica requested. “They’re all dead.”

The man was overwhelmed, face red as he tried to fumble with words and hold back tears while caressing his daughter. Jessica snapped her fingers again and cleared her throat, a sizable manila envelope being plopped into her hand shakily by the gentleman. He kept whispering in thanks, eyes welling up with tears as Jessica pulled her legs back up and grasped the door.

“You have a good one, sir. Thank you for choosing us.”

Jessica slid the door closed, hearing it lock with a click once the ork put pressure on the pedal and moved them forward. The van pulled out of the alleyway and went west for several city blocks, circling and maneuvering just in case they were being followed. After the sixth circuit the ork broke off and stopped before a ratty apartment complex with barely any traffic on the streets or people on the sidewalk. Jessica pulled the door open again and hopped out onto the sidewalk. Her and lambchop shared an exhausted fist bump, Jessica wincing as she felt the nerves in her side pinch from the effort.

“I’ll pick my share up tomorrow. Behave, okay?”

“Not on your life,” Lambchop spat. “I’ll make sure your stack is sitting nice and pretty, yeah?”

“Yeah. Go drop off the payment so we can split it with Cowboy, okay? No partying until that’s done.”

“Sure, mom. Want some fucking warm milk while we’re at it?”

“Don’t give me lip, Thompson. Just get it done.”

“I’m not a fuck-up,” Lambchop said with a defiant edge to her words. “See you later.”

The human pulled the door closed and after a few moments the van’s turn signal blinked on and they slowly peeled off into the muted grime of downtown Seattle, leaving Jessica with a few dozen new bruises, cracks and probably a hairline fracture or two to deal with. She turned to her building and limped up through the main door, thankful she remembered her keys and didn’t need to buzz a neighbor. Jessica opened her mailbox and, satisfied with nothing in it, shuffled to her apartment and splayed out on the pull-out couch she had acting as the bed and seating to her new and unfurnished apartment. She considered herself lucky that the previous tenant left the couch, otherwise she’d be sleeping on a bed made of old ammo crates and her sleeping bag. Jess focused on the pain, finding the location of each throbbing bit of soreness or hurt on her body with her pointer finger. Satisfied with each spot other than the ribs she closed her eyes, figuring the ribs would be fine until tomorrow. Wouldn’t have been the first time she went to sleep broken; wouldn’t be the last. That was just the nature of being a freelancer like her, a shadowrunner.

It was the only job she wanted.


End file.
